Bill White is certain about one thing: The New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal now under construction will be ready for use as a staging area for the historic Cape Wind offshore wind-farm project.

As senior director of offshore wind-sector development at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, White is tasked with overseeing the construction of the $100 million facility that Cape Wind Associates could one day soon be using as a launch pad for a $2.6 billion wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod. (Cape Wind’s arrival in New Bedford is not a sure thing; it also has a lease agreement for North Kingstown, R.I.)

If all goes well, the 28-acre New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal should be completed by the end of this year, in time for preliminary construction of the wind farm in 2015.

A former assistant secretary for federal affairs within Gov. Deval Patrick’s executive office of energy and the environment, White has also served as a special assistant to former President Bill Clinton in Washington, D.C., and worked a number of years at the U.S. State Department. He once served as a media liaison dispatched to Kuwait a day after the Gulf War ended in 1991. He’s also been a “slow but steady runner” over the years, participating in four marathons in Boston, New York, Washington and Chicago.

He recently spoke about his personal and professional life with BBJ correspondent Jay Fitzgerald.

Is the Cape Wind project ever going to get built after all these delays? The answer is ‘yes.’ I believe it will start construction, out of the New Bedford Marine Commercial Terminal, early next year. When it begins, it will have a tremendous impact on Massachusetts and particularly on the next generation.

Do you ever see other offshore wind farms being built to the south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket? It seems awfully far from the coast. It’s a fair question. One of the reasons we were looking further off shore of the Vineyard was to minimize visual impacts. The area south of the Vineyard, about 14 miles off the coast, is one of the largest planned offshore wind areas along the East Coast. We expect an auction, a federal auction, later this year (for the wind-farm rights) and I believe it will attract a great deal of interest. It’s definitely feasible. In Europe, they’re building wind farms further and further out into the sea.

Where else along the Massachusetts and New England coast can you see being developed for offshore wind farms? The only place envisioned is south of the Vineyard. There are actually two separate areas there, off of Massachusetts and one for Rhode Island. There’s no plan for any other location in New England. I think Maine is looking at it, but their water is quite deep. New York has a planning area and New Jersey has a planning area.

In New Bedford, there may one day be other uses for the terminal other than for just wind projects. Can you tell us about that? We’ve always envisioned it to be a multipurpose facility. We knew that an emerging offshore wind industry was probably going to be uneven in the early years. So, in between wind deployments, we envisioned other uses. There’s been a lot of interest from terminal operators to handle various types of cargo (in New Bedford), whether it’s containers or bulk types of imports and exports.

You worked in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during and after the first Gulf War as a media liaison. What was that like? Did you witness any battle scenes or just a lot of weird things? I entered Kuwait on the morning of liberation. So, thankfully, U.S. troops had pretty much secured the entire country in a rapid series of movements. There was a lot of wreckage and destruction, particularly of the Iraqi army. Another amazing thing was that, as the Iraqis retreated, they lit oil fields on fire. So the smoke from the fires was so heavy and thick, it actually blocked out the sun. It was complete darkness in the middle of the day.

What’s the last book you read? I just finished ‘Bunker Hill,’ by Nathaniel Philbrick. It’s a great one. I liked it mainly because of the story of Joseph Warren. There’s a part in the book where it says if Dr. Warren had survived the battle of Bunker Hill, we might not have known the name of George Washington. It’s an amazing story. Plus, I first met my wife at the Warren Tavern in Charlestown years ago. So it has a special significance to me.

Do you have any hobbies? I would say running. I’m a slow but steady runner. And, more recently, my wife has gotten me involved in community gardening. We’ve got the best crop of corn we’ve had in 12 years. It’s kind of soothing. In Milton, we have a community garden with parcels that different families rent each year. There are people from all walks of life, all different generations. It’s nice being up there and doing your thing and just shooting the breeze with people.

Do you have an all-time favorite movie? Why did you like it? With the news of the death of Robin Williams, I guess I’m thinking about his movies these days. So it’s probably “Good Will Hunting,” the story of a brilliant but lost kid connecting to the Robin Williams character. And, of course, there’s the reliving in the movie of the Carlton Fisk home run in 1975, which I remember vividly to this day.

What do you usually do for vacations? Ever since I was a kid, my family has been going to Falmouth. So Falmouth is the center of my family. I have five older sisters and I think eight aunts and uncles and their extended families. We’re usually down in Falmouth and that’s where we’ll all get together.

If you could go anywhere on a dream vacation, where would it be and why? The answer would be Dublin, next year for my final marathon when I turn 50. My ancestors are also from Galway and I haven’t really dove into that history, so that would be a good opportunity to do so.